Well after spending 7 days with C7 we’ve reached a set of opinions based on that 7 day experience, These are not complaints or reports of suspected bugs, but some genuine issues encountered by us (and many people on this and other forums it seems) which really SHOULD be looked at by Steinberg, and hope fully that they already are, they’re surely not wanting to take a 0.1 release version to Winter NAMM or Frankfurt that’s for sure.
Really, it’s GREAT update (so far). It seems to be completely stable, quite happily loads older projects - flawlessly and loads all the plugins (including iLok 2 ones) with no problems at all. Users who complain about iLOK replacement are being silly to themselves, the old iLOK 1 is obsolete technology and a new replacement is only £30 or so, if they’re not willing to upgrade the iLOK to take advantage of all the wonderful new features, it begs to question why they’ve invested so much in such high end iLOK packages and DAW’s to begin with!
It doesn’t seem to be as snappy as 6.5 yet (especially the mix console which is a bit clunky) and there’s loads of new features we’ve not even looked at yet. (So opinion here are on the basics, any other observations will reserved until we’ve used them) Though it must also be said that the Chord Track is really impressive with so much potential, and it’s just SO flexible in what it can be done with it, used in conjunction with other midi and audio tracks, inserts and the right VSTi ‘s plugged in.
Despite following all the usual advive etc, given from SB and MANY other forum users, C7 still will not connect to hub after a seven days of regular use, yet the help menu connects to forums and shop to buy upgrades etc with out a problem at all. (Studio 1-2 Connects straight off on the smae PC to initiate any update installation)
Likewise, even after trying all the fixes/solutions on the forum, C7 HS still cannot find the “Hybrid” sound set, despite having HS Full as well as HSE and other sound sets installed. It would be nice if Steinberg listened to majority of users who would like to be able to choose where the libraries are installed to rather than having them scattered around the C drive like aural dandruff.
We created a number of “trial projects” and saved them, but it seems it does not want on occasion to recall correct screen sets on dual monitors as they were saved, and that includes the saved screen sets 1- 4. That part is also not so fast as the mixer set recall in 6.5 and it’s a shame they don’t have names list or drop down name menu which would be very useful and far better than trying to remember what screens on what button, (and is 4 really enough)? Also, the console does not appear o monitor 2 as was saved s it’s an hit F3 job here to get the mixer back (On this machine anyways)
It’s also really disappointing also that the edit screens, both midi, audio et all don’t open up to a useable full screen at cursor position and still has to be dragged around to find the corner box to take them to full screen on monitor one, this has been an irritation in way back before 6.5 and is still not rectified in this release.
The graphics also appear quite strange, no matter what screen resolution is applied, the ASIO meter (on this machine) is HUGE! It’s like having a mobile phone stuck in the corner of the screen and shows little really useful information, both for it’s size and confusing display, (especially when compared to studio one ASIO/resource monitor pop up box which is a really informative helper with loads of really information, would be nice to a similar on C7 xx) Though channel strip is really good, but it just means another window to call up now and then or, quite often
Like may other users, we find the Mix Console and Rack graphics could be a lot sharper , more defined and a lot snappier in it‘s response to screen set changing. It’s quite unsightly when the channel rack strip controls “fall over” each other when zoomed out which looks like a platter full of murky green red and blue MM’s or Smarties leading a user to think they may be sea sick after a few hours and means one has to constantly zoom in & out to use a lot of it to adjust the knobs (which is rather annoying to say the least)
Like wise, it’s really fidgety to zoom in and out of the racks in order to see a chevron to click on to get to the required drop down box insert fx menu, controls, on inserts, to adjust plug in controls or change them etc. This is particularly disconcerting for people many people with sight problems and wear vari-focal glasses - lean back in your seat and the whole mix console turns into a very dysfunctional badly designed black/grey monolith with blurry buttons and text that cant be read as the fonts are just not sharp enough and the dowdy green/blue inserts etc are horrible to work with.
Same with the pan controls, blurry grey stripes and tiny grey buttons to turn them on and off, really unsightly, the pan slider could at least turn blue to show at a glance it’s in use, otherwise it’s back to zooming in and out which as said is fiddly and time consuming.
The sends are great (apart from legibility and colour and the EQ‘s really should have distinctly coloured before and after EQ graphs to clearly show after EQ changes, as well as change the opaqueness of the solid green EQ curves.
The other issue is with the wealth of metering, fine if you want a screen full of huge electric neon tubes leaping about in your face for hours on end, commanding attention and distracting away from other things, surely they would be better as discreet, slim ladders. Having all those large electric neon tube meters is a sure way to a headache, (but at least you can get rid of them if you want!)
For people who use multi out cards, (or quite a lot of other users as well) a quick channel state overview without lots of scrolling which was a great feature of the old mixer when using 3rd party plugins otherwise top half of screen 2 can quickly become a unsightly black slab and waste of screen real estate (unless of course you enjoy the sight of 17” high meters blinding you and distracting from the dowdy coloured blurred buttons and sometimes unreadable text, (though OK for those who use compacted multi mixer views on top of each other)
So. What should interested up graders do? That’s simple, go get it. It’s leaps and bounds ahead of previous versions, very quick to learn (we’ve not even looked at the manual yet) and if there’s anything you don’t like, you don’t have to use it and if there’s something you think could be improved, then get yourself on here and ask for it, just be sure to image or back up your drive before installing and do a side by side installation in order to carry on with what your doing whilst you ge to grips with so many new features and a new way of using them!
but lets stick to the issues and not wander off on to eating fish and other subjects please 
